


The Lockdown Statements

by Urbenmyth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Also maybe some other people, COVID, Consider each in its own alternate universe I guess, Content warnings provided individually, Don't try and analyse where this is in terms of Season 5, Jonathan Simms - Freeform, Or the series in general, Spoilers for the series, Statement Fic, The timeline of this is weird, also swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26372350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urbenmyth/pseuds/Urbenmyth
Summary: As people are trapped and isolated, society crumbling and a deadly pandemic sweeping across the world, the entities feast on a new wave of terror. And even in this new world, the Institute takes their stories.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Desolation: A World On Fire

[Content Warnings: COVID, Suicide, Mental collapse, poverty, eviction, rejection, isolation, Depression, fire and burns, ableism, the benefits system, family troubles, loss of loved ones, Relationship collapse, death of LGBT character in passing]

**Statement #0201507.**

**Statement of Frank Fischer, regarding an unusual statue outside his apartment. Submitted online 15/07/20. Statement Recorded by Jonathan Simms, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.**

**Statement Begins**

I was so scared of telling this story. I was so scared that if I tried to, something worse would happen.

But fuck it. There's nothing worse left to happen.

Let it burn me. It’s burnt everything else.

I was happy, before this. I had a decent job. I had a long term relationship. I got on with my family. I was doing well. Not _amazing_ , maybe, but moving up. I had plans. I had hope.

And then COVID happened.

I was a receptionist. The pay was ok, and hopefully I could move on to better things with it. But who needs a receptionist when no-one can meet in the flesh? So I was let go. I got a measly severance package, and that was that. Over.

I saw the statue outside my block when I got home.

It was an ugly thing, all grey metal and sharp edges. It looked like this...misshapen human, like someone had made a proper statue of a human being and then let it melt and reform. Normally, something like this would creep me the hell out- certainly, I'd seen no indication that anyone was putting up a horrible ugly metal statue

But frankly, I was in too bad a mood to care. It must have been something the neighbors put up for reasons I didn’t know about and had no interest in finding out about. I sat at home and thought about what to do with my life. It would be ok. I could get money. I would be fine.

I applied for benefits. Have you ever applied for benefits? It’s a nightmare. A maze of scrutiny and humiliation and obstacles and judgement, sitting there as “successful” people decide if you’re worthy of being alive. It's degrading and terrifying and, in my case, pointless.

They turned me down, in the end. I don’t even remember why

The statue caught the light strangely when I went home. In the light of the setting sun, it looked like it was aflame.

COVID kept happening, and every day my life fell apart a bit more.

My friendship group drifted apart from me. It was nothing personal. My laptop is just old. I could buy another one, but low fundsand lockdown, so as it was my Skype calls just glitched and stuttered and cut out. Sometimes it didn’t work at all. Another inconvenience in a time full of them.

Enough of one that people slowly decided it was easier to not invite me, or I decided it was easier not to show up. Soon, I had no-one. 

My mental health deteriorated. My physical health, too. Stress and cheap food. I was sick all the time. My depression was getting worse, and I could barely get out of bed, which of course just made it harder and harder to deal with the growing list of problems. A vicious cycle destroying my life bit by bit. 

My finances dwindled ever lower. The things I loved before were left abandoned in corners. My house was a mess, my mood too low to even wash up a bowl.

And outside, I swore I could see the statue glowing. As if it was heating up.

I would have asked around about it, but people were still unable to meet. Maybe someone brought it, or maybe someone in the block made it, or maybe it fucking walked over here by itself. I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t even get the small comfort of knowing why this was happening to me.

And things kept getting worse.

I couldn’t patch things up with my friends because I couldn’t see them anymore, so they just dropped off one by one. I couldn’t get a job because there were no jobs. All the events I had to look forward to were cancelled one by one, leaving only sitting alone in an empty room. I did painting sometimes, before, but I was low on supplies, and there was no way to get more. My family refused to socially distance, and a heated argument about that burnt that bridge too.

Outside, the statue was warm. I could feel it when I walked past it. The grass was starting to blacken. 

Every time I got another piece of bad news it got a little hotter. I could sense it, you know. I told myself, at this point, that I was just imagining it. I was paranoid, and I was stressed, and I was ascribing sentience to a goddamn statue. But I could sense it 

It was enjoying this.

I invited my girlfriend over. Susie Marsh. She wouldn’t come over- social distancing you know. I told her what was happening, how bad things had gotten, and how a statue was mocking me. She looked worried, said she would skype in if I wanted? I...I may have snapped at her. Yelled at her. Said things I shouldn’t have. I was just...I was just so angry. I just wanted someone to come and see me. I just wanted to be held.

God.

She won't talk to me now.

And these days the rain boils when it touches the statue.

I can’ t go out. My finances are running low, and I can’t get a job because everything’s locked down. I’m so alone.  
And all I have to blame it on is that _fucking_ statue.

So I went outside one day, after I learnt that a delivery I was going to get was delayed by the lockdown. It was a small thing, but I was looking forward to it, and I just needed to take my anger out on something. It was red hot now, the grass around it black and charred. I screamed at it, demanding it stop this. _Demanding_ that it give me my life back. It didn't answer- of course it didn't, it's a statue, so I took a metal pipe and I hit it. And hit it. And hit it.

It did nothing. It wouldn’t even dent it

The pipe was soon too hot to touch, and I dropped it, and I sobbed. Just lay there and sobbed, as the heat poured over me.

The next day, I heard that Simon, the only member of our friendship group that still went out of his way to talk to me, died in a house fire. I wasn't invited to the online funeral.

Over the next week a job that was willing to hire me for online work went under when their primary location burnt. Any chance that my family could reunite ended forever when they caught it, a record height in fever temperature. At least i was invited to the funeral this time. My paintings were found charred and blackened overnight, completely unsalvagable. It didn’t even bother to make that one seem plausible.

I went and I begged the statue. I was so sorry for hitting it, I said. I sobbed and pleaded with it to leave me alone and looked up to see its molten face warping into a cruel, cruel smile. And then I started coughing. A dry, hacking cough.

Now I sit here in the dark, the fever raging. I have no money for rent, and even with the evictions on hold it won’t be long before they find some way to throw me out. So I’m writing this out as fast as I can before the electricity is cut.

Outside, the statue is white hot.

It is inviting me to go to it, to burn myself to ashes. To end the collapse of my life in one final conflagration.

And that’s why I’m telling you my story now.

I can no longer think of a good reason to say no.

**Statement Ends**

**Supplement ******

Police reports show Mr Fischer as taking his own life shortly after submitting this statement. While investigation has confirmed that the series of tragedies he writes about did indeed occur, no statue has been found in the area matching his description, and I would normally be willing to put this down to a severe mental breakdown. A man who lost his family, social life, partner, job, hobbies and home, suffering hallucinations from the stress before he finally took his own life. Tragic, of course, but not unheard of. Especially in these current times. 

However, Martin and Sasha decided to contact the other residents of Mr Fischer’s block of flats in Manchester, to see if any of them could verify the statue’s existence. 

They could not. 

Every single inhabitant- 21 people- had over the last month suffered a total collapse of major aspects of their life, before either taking their own lives or vanishing. While the police reports eluded the connection, and the general news stories of 2020 allowed it to slip under the radar as a news story, the records were all there. The details of how they died are unclear, hidden behind police red tape, but...I have my suspicions. Sasha notes the grass outside the block had a charred circle, like the aftermath of a huge fire. 

Checking social media reveals little of professional interest- despair filled statuses, ignored cries for help and other mundane indications of their deteriorating mental states. However, the inhabitant of flat 8, a software engineer called Charlie Davids, uploaded an unusual photo shortly before their death. It showed a crude metal statue in a rainstorm, seemingly outside the apartment block, although the details are obscured by steam. 

The caption simply says “I can still hear it laughing”. 

******Recording Ends ******** **


	2. The Spiral: Over By August

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: COVID, Unreality, Hallucinations, Addiction, Family Death, Isolation, Poverty, Depression, Grief, exploitation, Suicidal Ideation, Deception and Manipulation, Denial, Imposters

**Statement #00200108**

****

**Statement of Drew Bianchi regarding an unusual youtube channel discovered during lockdown. Statement submitted online on 01/08/20. Statement recorded by Jonathan Simms, the Archivist.**

****

**Statement Begins**

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

I can hear it outside, and I don’t want to. But...I don't want to stop hearing it either.

Ok. Sorry. It’s hard to focus on the laptop at the moment. It’s trying to tell me that I don’t need to tell you my story, that mentioning it will just upset me. And it’s right.

But I don’t want to vanish without a trace, so I’ll try my best. 

All of this began after the pandemic started. After things got really bad. I remember when all the news was building up and up. On my Italian side the country near collapsed and I had no idea if my family was safe or not, on the British side the government was doing nothing as the death toll rose. My job was online, so I was safe there, but I was new. No-one there was even _work_ friends, never mind _actual_ friends. And my actual friends had their own problems, and they couldn’t spare time or effort to work on me.

I was isolated and scared and I felt like my world was collapsing.

And then my mum decided to go see some friends.

She got sick. Really sick. I was telling myself it would be fine, that she’d be fine, that it very unlikely to be COVID, that it was almost certainly just a flu. I kept telling myself that. It was just a flu and she’d be OK.

It wasn’t. And she wasn’t.

Because of social distancing, I couldn’t even say goodbye. I had to Skype into the funeral. I think that’s what got me, odd as it seems. I couldn’t say goodbye in person. I had to say it from the other side of the country. Over _Skype_.

I think that triggered the breakdown. 

I was doing very badly, sobbing all day half the time and lying blankly in bed the other. People sent messages and called in, of course, but those online things don’t help. I needed actual people, and I couldn’t get them. I was so alone, and I was so scared and i was...I was thinking about whether to carry on.

That’s when I found it.

Infolay, it was called. It was an education channel recommended to me, although I’d never really shown much interest in that kind of thing before. At that time I thought it was just a glitch in the algorithm, but at this point any distraction was welcome. So I checked it out.

It was a happy little video, all bright colors and cheerful music and cute little greenscreen animations. The man in the video was young, generically handsome, and charismatic. Friendly without being creepy, able to sound both smart and accessible effortlessly. And he smiled so wide. So wide.

The episodes where about COVID.

He talked about how it was overhyped. How it would be over soon, only the sick and vulnerable would be in trouble and even most of them would be fine. How people would be fine. How I would be fine.

It was bullshit, I knew that. I’d studied critical thinking at college and tried to keep myself sharp about. He gave unreliable sources when he gave them at all, and cherrypicked charts and used emotive language to deflect attention and all those things, just like any other ideological con artist. I knew that, I did, but...God. God I just wanted to believe. I just wanted to know it would be OK. I wanted to hear this man lie to me and say it would be OK.

I spent more and more of my time with that site. Watching episode after episode, for hours on end. They were so calming, so gentle, and there was always more. It’s all going to be ok, Drew, they said. It’s all going to be fine. And when every other site was just showing terror and misery...how could I stop.

I began to loose track of hobbies and social relationships. Whenever I would try them, reality just crashed down on me, and I couldn’t breath. I broke down, just like I had before. But Infolay had released a new video, and it told me all the ways things were good and fine and safe and I just...needed it. I needed it.

I lost my job. I could code online, sure. But why? Every time I tried to work just the stress of the lockdown came back, and the site called to me. A new notification. A new video. Just a short one, to calm down. My boss didn’t see it that way, of course, and after missing so many call ins I was fired.

It was when the latest video said that it would be fine, money would be fine and I didn’t need to worry that I began to get worried.

The man in the video’s grin was ear to ear now. I think it might even have stretched a bit beyond. And he talked to me by name. He responded to questions in real time

I know, I know. It was so obvious something was wrong here. I should have stopped. I know that.

But he said all the things I wanted to hear. That soon this would be over and life would resume. He had charts, and papers, and I didn’t have to read them because he’d tell me what all of them said and why they meant that everything was good. I couldn’t give up the one source of hope I had.

One time I watched a whole 30 minute video before I realized the laptop was out of charge. Soon they were playing without the laptop there at all.

The videos were playing in the TV and on my Phone and in the mirror and reflected in windows. I’d just want them, and there they’d be, a happy animated opening playing from whereever I looked. I could choose. Just had to look and they’d be there, smiling and calm and happy.

And I was so scared I’d lost my mind, because of course I’d lost my mind, but more then that I was scared I might...regain my mind? That I’d have to face reality again. Because when I looked out the window I saw crowded streets and everyday life, although when I went out the door they were deserted. And I knew the crowds weren’t real. But I still stared at them, with their fractal limbs and giddy laughs, and I was happy. It felt happy.

I couldn’t show others the videos or talk about them. What if that broke the spell? What if they couldn’t see them, and told me so? What if I saw that I was looking at 404 screen and I had to look up and see where I was? See what was really happening as the bill notices piled up in my filthy house?

I couldn’t risk it.

The videos told me that it was safe to have people over again. It wasn’t, of course it wasn’t, but I tried it anyway. I called a friend, and she came over, and we had a good time. For the first time in so long, I had a good time.

She didn’t really come over, of course. She had that same wide smile, ear to ear, and eyes that glitched like a video on a slow connection. I was in an empty room, I knew that, laughing to myself. But I couldn’t see that. I didn’t want to see that. I didn’t say anything to her that might catch her in a lie, and when she left I could ignore that the door hadn’t been unlocked.

My mum called me up, said it was a mistake at the hospital and she was fine and she loved me so much. I was so happy I could easily ignore the times her voice buffered.

The channel has uploaded a final video. And there’s a new door in my house now. It’s so...noticeable. Like a red bell on a white screen.

The man in the video is all fractals and limbs, and he talks about how I just need to step through the door, and I’ll be in a better world. A world where this never happened. A world where I can be with friends and my mum’s alive and everything is safe and good.

And he’s lying of course. I can see the emotional manipulation, the logical fallacies, the quick talking and the half-truths. He’s not even bothering to hide them anymore.

I know there will be something terrible behind it. Maybe even something worse then my life now.

But I’m so sorry. So sorry to everyone who stuck by me.

Because I’m still going to say yes.

**Statement Ends.**

****

****

**Supplement.**

The Spiral as self-deception. The lies we tell ourselves. An obvious aspect of the Twisting Deceit, I suppose, but not a common one in the statements I’ve seen. I suppose when reality becomes something we _want_ to lose our grip on, the fear of delusion takes on a new form to match. There's a perverse ingenuity in how the Entities adapt, one I wish I didn't admire as much as I do.

As for less...philosophical followups, the Spiral remains hard to find. Infolay, while it does exist, is a tiny channel last updated 4 years ago. Certainly, it has no similarities to the channel described in Mx. Bianchi’s statement. I managed to access their browsing history, and they hadn’t accessed Youtube in months. Uploading this statement is the first time they accessed the internet in a month.

Mx Bianchi themselves hasn’t been seen since they uploaded this statement. At least not in the flesh. The official statement is that, after a serious mental breakdown caused by grief, they ran away, and are presumed dead. 

However, on their Facebook page, a video was uploaded a week after they were last seen. The video is mostly distortion and static, barely comprehensible, with a figure that roughly matches their description in the background.

Running it though a lot of video editing software has mostly made junk date. However, one image is clear. 

Me, in a cabin with a cup of tea. I’m smiling, and my eyes look... normal. Everything looks normal and happy.

I... have deleted this video from the archives. The lies of the Spiral are best kept out of our files. We pursue truth here, not deception and illusions.

Or at least, that’s the story I’m telling myself.

**Recording ends.**


End file.
